“Your content needs to be commercial free,” Stelzner says, drawing from the core argument of his book, which has won rave reviews from all corners of the marketing industry. “Have you ever been to a wedding sponsored by Nike? Have you ever received a gift that required you to watch a commercial before you could open it? Of course not. It’s ludicrous in a personal context. Think of it in a business context. This is where most small businesses get it wrong. They’ll have a great piece of content and then ruin it with an advertisement at the end.”

Christopher Null is the founder and owner of Null Media LLC. A 20-year veteran of the magazine and internet trade, he's worked for some of the biggest names on the web and in publishing, including Yahoo!, Intuit, Ziff-Davis Media, Future Networks, McGraw-Hill, and CMP Media.